


Ronin

by ShootWithIntentToKill



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, At least not really, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Ronin Clint Barton, Sad, The Five Years, Vormir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:53:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25471186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShootWithIntentToKill/pseuds/ShootWithIntentToKill
Summary: How Natasha found out that Clint had become Ronin over the Five Year time jump during Endgame. My attempt at sadness.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23





	Ronin

Three months after Thor beheaded Thanos, and the Avengers went back to Earth, half of all life still dead, life had started to reach a new normal. A new normal, because with half the world gone nothing could go back to the way it was, but things had started to settle into a routine.

Tony and Pepper had bought a small (for the billionaire) but nice house in front of a lake. They were preparing for their wedding, which was going to be a small affair as, with half the world gone, no one felt much like celebrating.

Bruce had left. He still checked in occasionally, so he hadn’t disappeared off the face of the Earth like last time, but he just wasn’t around.

Steve had bought an apartment in the city. He would sometimes take the trip to the compound to visit, but as the months moved on, they would get more and more infrequent. He had begun taking courses to qualify as a counsellor.

Carol Danvers, Rocket and Nebula had gone back to space, citing that they were needed in the rest of the galaxy.

With the aid of the Queen Mother, General Okoye had become the leader of Wakanda, although she refused to call herself a queen.

Thor had taken what was left of his people to Norway, where construction of New Asgard had begun. He had also been ordering large shipments of alcohol to the town.

Rhodey continued to work for the military, being wherever they wanted him when they wanted him, but was also the only member of the Avengers still working.

Other than, of course, Natasha Romanoff. She had been running the Avengers, working to try and keep everyone in contact, had started a program helping the children orphaned by the snap, and doing a hundred other jobs that should have been done by a room full of people, rather than one person in an empty compound.

It was one of those days, with a monotonous routine. Rhodey was at the compound with Nat that particular day, having just finished re-capturing a stolen weapons cache in the Middle-East. Neither Avenger was talking, but both were enjoying the company, in a too-empty world. That was when the compound phone rang.

She was surprised at the caller ID that came up, mostly because she hadn’t spoken to that particular person in years. Alex Stevens had been a SHIELD agent when the organisation fell in 2014. Natasha had been friendly with her, and had been aware that she had started working for the FBI. The two hadn’t spoken since.

“Natasha Romanoff, Avengers Compound,” she said, answering the phone. She saw Rhodey shifting closer to listen.

_“Romanoff, it’s Alex Stevens, calling with the FBI.”_

“I remember you. What can I do for you, Stevens?”

_“It’s complicated. I’m in the Meatpacking district in Manhattan; the FBI was called in to look at a crime scene that the NYPD didn’t know what to make of. And, to tell you the truth, I don’t know what to think about it either. I was hoping that you could take a look, I know you have experience with things that are… out of the ordinary.”_

“In what way is it out of the ordinary?”

_“LAPD got a 911 call from a child in a warehouse last night. When they arrived, they found the warehouse with fifteen bodies in various states of dismemberment and stabbing, all suspected members of a child kidnapping ring.”_

“And the child?”

_“Children, plural. Eleven children, victims of the ring, all shaken, hurt and starving, but alive. They said that it was one man who did all the killing, but can’t say anything else about him. He was apparently wearing a hood and mask.”_

“I understand, but what is so strange you come to me?”

_“Fifteen men, all armed, all in the same room, killed by… current guess is long knife, although we are still waiting on the coroner’s report; only two of them had their guns out when they died. Our killer somehow managed to kill thirteen people in one room before anyone could react, and eleven child witnesses were left unharmed.”_

“Sounds like a vigilante,” Rhodey commented.

_“We’ve never heard of this one before. No one has,” Stevens commented._

Natasha quickly rattled off her mobile number. “Text me the address. I’ll take a look.”

After some brief goodbyes, Natasha’s phone pinged. She turned to Rhodey. “Do you want to come and look at a murder scene with me?”

Rhodey shrugged. “I was worried this day would be too boring.”

As soon as they reached the police tape around the warehouse, Stevens beckoned them in. Her hair was shorter than Natasha remembered, with grey growing at the roots of her brown locks, suggesting she hadn’t bothered to dye it in a while. She had dark rings around her eyes, but then you would be hard pressed to find anyone without them at the moment.

They greeted each other, and then Stevens led them inside. “It’s not pretty,” she warned.

She was absolutely right. Even after the bodies had been removed, blood soaked the floor in most spaces. There was what was most likely cocaine on counters, and cages large enough to hold children. The locks that held them shut were broken on the floor.

“What was here?” Rhodey asked, standing beside a small, slightly off-circular chalk ring.

“Victim #14’s head,” Alex said.

Rhodey rapidly backed away on his leg supports.

“CSI agrees what the children say; one killer,” Stevens told them. “Although in terms of forensic evidence, there is none. That is insane for a crime scene this large and messy.”

“Professional,” Natasha commented.

“This is more than just professional,” Rhodey replied. “This is almost Avenger-level skill.”

Stevens’ phone chimed, and she checked it. “Coroner’s preliminary report just got back,” she called loud enough for everyone on the scene – the two Avengers, CSI, FBI and the police officers – to hear. Everyone moved in slightly closer. “The victims died of a variety of injuries – stabbed hearts, cut veins, punctured lungs, beheading. All would have been dead within seconds of the injury, and they were all killed with the same weapon; a sword.”

“Are you serious?” One of the police officers called. “You expect us to believe that one man did all of this with a fucking sword?”

“I’m just relaying the message,” Stevens said, “and I don’t really give a damn what you believe. It doesn’t change the fact that we have fifteen dead bodies, eleven witnesses and not a single suspect. Does anyone have anything at all that can help with this case?”

There was some negative mumbling, and Stevens sighed. She looked at Natasha. “If it was you doing it, how would you?”

Natasha looked around at the blood-stained floors, the open cages and the chalk outlines of bodies. “Not with a sword.”

She then decided that it was time to talk to the witnesses. Alex brought her and Rhodey to the police station, where they were all sitting in a conference room with a variety of what were probably social service workers and family members, eating like they were half starved, which, of course, they were. “We’ve been able to locate families for most of them,” the FBI agent told Natasha. “All of them are New York natives, and were probably picked up off the streets. The children were likely all taken off the streets at a time where no one would notice a few extra people disappearing.”

Natasha nodded, and walked into the room. The youngest child was probably around six, the oldest a girl around thirteen or fourteen. She looked around, and focused back on a boy of maybe eleven or twelve.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m Natasha Romanoff. What’s your name?”

“Jamie,” he said. “You’re the Black Widow.”

“I am,” she agreed. “Jamie, is that short for James?” He nodded. “You see my friend over there?” she gestured at Rhodey who had started showing his leg braces to a couple of interested girls. “His name is James too.”

“He’s War Machine,” Jamie said.

“He is,” Natasha said.

“That’s cool,” Jamie muttered, but there was little enthusiasm in it. The kid had just been through more trauma in a few months than may people did in their life. Natasha was aware that, for the younger children, time would probably dull the memories, but Jamie was old enough that he would be stuck with the horrors that he had been through for the rest of his life.

“Jamie, I need your help,” Natasha told him. “I am trying to understand what happened in that warehouse, and I think you can help.”

Jamie looked down at his hands. “You want to stop him,” he said. “But he helps people. He saved us.”

“Were you scared of him?” Natasha asked.

“I wasn’t scared,” Jamie said indignantly, in true (pre)teen fashion.

“Why weren’t you scared?” Natasha asked.

“Because he had a cool sword, and he stopped the bad men!”

Natasha nodded. “What made his sword cool?”

“It was silver. And he could use it really well. He just went SWISH, SWISH, and the guy got his head chopped of. He’s a real ninja, like on that movie, but for real.”

“A ninja?”

Jamie nodded enthusiastically. “He did lots of flips and he flipped over the table, and then stabbed the bad guy! And he looked like a ninja as well, with a mask over his face and a hood and the sword.”

Natasha nodded. “What did he do after all the bad men were killed?”

“He came over to the cages and he cut open the lock with his sword, and then he let us out. He found a phone in one of the men’s pockets and gave it to me.”

“Did he say anything?”

“He asked me what my name was. I told him. He asked me if it was short for James, like you did. Then he said that he had a friend called James.”

“Had?”

Jamie shrugged. “And then he told me to wait five minutes and then call 911.”

“What did you say?”

“I asked who he was.”

“Did he tell you?”

Jamie shrugged again. Natasha had a lot of experience learning the silent communication of reluctant children, thanks to Cooper and Lila. Through the pain of the memories that thought brought up, Natasha thought _yes, mystery man gave him a name_.

“Can you tell me?”

Jamie shook his head.

“Was it a normal name, like James or Natasha?”

Jamie shook his head again.

“Was it a code name, like Black Widow, or War Machine?”

Jamie shrugged, but that didn’t mean yes or no that time. It meant he actually didn’t know. A foreign name maybe?

“Did he sound American?”

A nod.

“Which means that the name he gave you was a code name. I think that he wouldn’t mind you telling us. I think maybe he expected you to tell us?”

“Why would he want you to know if he doesn’t like the cops?” Smart boy.

“Can I let you into a secret Jamie?” Natasha lowered her voice. “The police are actually really bad at keeping secrets. The people who want to, find out almost everything the police know eventually. A lot of these are bad men, and they get scared when they realise that someone is out killing bad people. That is what your ninja wants, to make them scared. If you give them name, it makes them even more scared, because more rumours get around.”

Jamie nodded, but didn’t say anything. Natasha waited a beat, before leaving to meet Stevens outside. Rhodey followed her out a moment later.

“Get anything?” Stevens asked.

“More than I think Jamie realised he was giving,” Natasha said. “Our man is American, but he uses a foreign sounding name, so probably well-travelled. Highly trained martial artist and probably some kind of gymnastics, and he felt like he lost everything in the snap.”

“Everyone does,” Rhodey pointed out.

“Some more than others,” Natasha replied. “Despite the killing, the kids both like and are actively protecting him, which is why they won’t tell us anything; probably to do with the basic manipulation.”

“Manipulation?” Rhodey asked.

“Basic manipulation. You say a few key phases that instantly make you seem more trustworthy,” Alex explained. “For example, saying that you were in the army or a police officer to the right people makes you seem instantly more trustworthy.”

“The particular one he used, was saying he has a friend with your name,” Natasha said. “It works best with children or more self-centred people, but can work with anyone under the right circumstance. It associates you to ‘their name’ and ‘friend’, while also suggesting that you have friends, and so are a likable person. It is an easy, and very useful little trick. One of my favourites for comforting scared people.”

Alex was nodding along, but Rhodey looked slightly aghast.

“Anyway, I’m just waiting for Jamie to give me a name now,” Natasha said.

“You think he will?” Alex asked.

“He definitely knows a name. Not the real one, but probably at least a pseudonym we may be able to trace. I just hope he’ll give it to us,” Natasha told the other two. “But there is something I want to know. There are fifteen people dead, there should have been way more cops and feds crawling around the scene, and working various angles. I should know, I’ve created scenes like that before.”

Alex sighed. “Population, food consumption, pollution, travel; everything has dropped in the months since the decimation, except one thing. Crime. 911 is getting almost twice as many calls as pre-snap levels, with half as much law enforcement to deal with them. We’re stretched thin.”

Natasha nodded, but before she could reply, she noticed something in her peripheral. She turned to look at Jamie.

“I asked him what his name was,” the boy said. “He told me his name was Ronin.”

“Thank you,” Alex said. The boy nodded, and ran back to the room all the other children were in.

“Ronin?” Rhodey asked. “I’ve never heard him.”

“Neither has the FBI,” Alex said, typing on her phone, “Or Interpol.”

“I have,” Natasha murmured.

“Where?” Rhodey and Alex asked, in sync.

_Natasha was sitting with Clint on the roof of the Helicarrier. Fortunately, it wasn’t flying at that particular moment, or they probably would have been having a very different conversation. As it was, they were discussing Fury’s plan for the Avengers Initiative._

_“People as powerful as Fury is suggesting? Even if he can find them, and that seems unlikely, they aren’t exactly team players,” Natasha said. “Just look at Stark.”_

_Clint had snorted. “The Avengers? Sort of bloodthirsty sounding, you know, like that Japanese ghost story.”_

_“What ghost story?” Natasha had asked, and Clint had told her._

_“I heard it back when I was working in Japan, before SHIELD,” he began. “I ended up staying in the house of the mother of some man I had been working with, long story, and she told it to me._

_“There was once a samurai, who fell in love with a beautiful girl. It was the usual boy-meets-girl-falls-in-love scenario. They got engaged, but before they could marry the samurai had to go off to war. He fought lots of battles, became a great warrior yadda-yadda. Anyway, he came home after three years of fighting, to find that while he had been gone, his love had been killed by invaders. Driven insane by grief, he became focused on getting vengeance for the death of his love._

_“For seven years he searched for the men who had killed her, leaving a trail of dead bodies behind. When he eventually found the men, he killed them. But he was too far gone. He had avenged his girl, but he had already caused so much death and destruction that nothing else could bring him satisfaction. So, he kept killing. They say that he had been possessed by a vengeful spirit, or perhaps he was one; I’m not really sure. But he stopped being bothered by pain, or injuries; he stopped caring altogether. People began to call him Ronin, the Wandering Samurai, and he continued killing until he was finally defeated by a force from the emperor, in the streets of Kyoto._

_“They say that if you want vengeance, you can take the mantle of Ronin, and he will help you get it, but the price is that you can’t stop until you are finally defeated in a fight ending in death.”_

They had laughed about it then, on the Helicarrier, when it was nothing more than some old wives’ tale, made to show the dangers of vengeance. Natasha wasn’t laughing now, as she repeated the story while looking at pictures of a room of dead bodies.

“So, you think someone heard that story, and decided to start killing?” Rhodey asked.

“It’s happened before,” Natasha said. “There’s apparently historical records of a dozen people taking on the name Ronin, and starting to kill. They are some of the most dangerous people in the world, because they have nothing to lose.”

“If someone really has taken on the mantle of Ronin,” Alex said, “then they are only just getting started. And this isn’t just a person with nothing to lose, this is someone with a lot of training, and nothing to lose.”

They paused at that statement, turning back to the board with the case.

“Excuse me,” came a voice from behind. It was one of the social workers who had been talking to the kids. “One of the children just drew this. We believe that it is of the killer, although I’m not sure if it will help.”

It was a children’s sketch, done in crayon, but it made Natasha’s heart leap into her mouth. The man was all in black, with gold outlines on the clothes, and he was holding a silver katana with holes cut into the blade.

_Someone with a lot of training, and nothing to lose._

_Avenger-level skill._

_A silver katana with holes cut into the blade._

_American, but he uses a foreign sounding name, so probably well-travelled. Highly trained martial artist and probably some kind of gymnastics, and he felt like he lost everything in the snap._

_Ronin, the Wandering Samurai._

Natasha prayed that she was wrong, but she knew that she wasn’t. She knew that sword. It had been hanging above the Barton's mantelpiece for as long as she had been visiting the farm. Clint Barton had taken on the mantle of Ronin as vengeance for his family’s death. He had killed fifteen people, and was almost certainly already out of the state, if not the country. He had started killing, he wasn’t going to stop, and if he didn’t want to be found, he wouldn’t be.

Five years later and four years earlier, as Natasha hung from Clint’s grip over a cliff on an alien planet, she found herself thinking of the end of the tale. _The price is that you can’t stop until you are finally defeated in a fight ending in death,_ Clint had said, all those years ago.

“It’s okay,” she told him.

Today, she had beaten Clint in their final fight, a fight ending in death. Her death. Clint could go back to his farm, his family, and never have to kill again. Natasha could pay back the unpayable debt Clint had given her the day they first met, and wipe the red from her ledger.

She kicked her feet out, and Clint’s grip loosened. She fell.

They could finally rest.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, that was coming. Everyone knew, it was in the tags, but WHY DID MARVEL KILL NATASHA ROMANOV?!?!?!? So, that was my attempt at angst and sadness. I am so sorry. ;)


End file.
